


Remembrance (Empire Day)

by PBlack2019



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Clone Trooper Culture (Star Wars), Dai Bendu (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, How Do I Tag, Jedi Culture & Tradition (Star Wars), Jedi Culture Respected, Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, no beta we die like men, this is just angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28447101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PBlack2019/pseuds/PBlack2019
Summary: It’s been 9 years since the end of the Clone Wars, 9 years since the Jedi Purge had wiped out Astraea’s home, her family. 9 years since she changed her name to Zahlah Ness and fled to Nar Shadda.It has been 9 years since she lost everything, and tonight she remembers.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Remembrance (Empire Day)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [An Imprecise Translation {ben}](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25965559) by [ghostwriterofthemachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriterofthemachine/pseuds/ghostwriterofthemachine). 



It was Empire Day, and Zahlah was doing what she’d been doing for Empire Day since the holiday was first declared. 

She’d left work at the seedy bar on Nar Shadda, slept for 5 hours, attended just enough of the public celebrations and faked drinking enough alcohol that she could retire back to her tiny apartment without it being suspicious, and then got to work on her actual celebrations. 

She set a single lit candle on her desk, placed her Holocron on one side, the bracers the Vode had gifted her and insisted she wear into battle on the other side, a small pastry and cup of wine behind it, and her lightsaber and other teal Kyber crystal in front of it. 

She knelt in front of the small shrine, took a deep breath, and started to speak. 

“ _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc. Ni partayli, gar darasuum._ I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.”

Then she started listing names. 

Her _Jaieh,_ who’d protected her with his dying breath, taking the hit that had been meant for her, the _Jaieh_ from the temple who she’d been close to before and after she was accepted as a Padawan, her clan mates who had been her siblings since they were barely old enough to walk, and the Vode that had been under her command, the ones who she had loved, who she’d been through hell and back with, who she refused to believe would betray her and her _Jaieh_ . (She refused to even entertain the thought that the love and care they had shown her and her _Jaieh_ was fake.)

She listed every name and number she could remember, and when she had finished, she started telling stories. She told the shrine stories of missions, and mishaps, of joyous times and hardships, of death, and life, of happiness and pain. 

_“You’re a good storyteller,” one of the shinies had told her, crowded around a campfire on some remote planet that they’d be on for another week, when she had told them stories about her rah'eni from when they had been Younglings, still running around the temple and causing chaos._

_“She is,” her fellow Commander, her ori’vod, as he’d named himself, said. His usually stern face pulled in a small smile. “If she was a shiny, we might call her Story.”_

_Years later, fleeing everything she knew and gaining passage to Nar Shadda (“it’s easy to disappear on the smuggler’s moon, Padawan. Many things slip through the cracks there.”) she’d give the name Zahlah, rather than Astraea._

When she finishes the stories, she will have long since run out of tears, her chronometer will read 01:00, and celebrations outside her apartment will still be in full swing, as she utters her closing words. 

“You are one with the Force, and the Force is with me. In time, I will also pass on, but for now, _benah foh._ For now I endure, and I remember. _Tonbrei enoah foh midaial ru enoah dai mifoh'al.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy. This was fun to write. I was having a lot of Post Order-66 feelings, and I was imagining how a Padawan would feel, remembering all of it. 
> 
> A few things about Zahlah. I kept her Master purposely vague in this, so it could be literally anyone, but she is originally my thought bubble about “hey, what if I gave Plo Koon and the Wolffe-pack a Padawan Commander.” And so Astraea Eshe was born. 
> 
> She was 14 when Order-66 was issued, and in this fic she’s 23. It’s been 9 years and she has a fairly stable life on Nar Shadda. 
> 
> Plo Koon purposefully flew his craft in front of the missile that had been aimed at Astraea’s craft because he knew she wouldn’t be able to dodge it. 
> 
> She then got the heck out of there and jumped into hyperspace and ended up on Nar Shadda. 
> 
> The first bit of the Remembrance Ritual is the Mandalorian daily prayer. The translation from Mando’a is in the next two sentences. You say the prayer, then list the names of those you’re remembering. 
> 
> Vode means siblings. When I use it capitalized, it’s referring to the Clones as a whole. 
> 
> Ori’vod means older sibling - Mando’a, by the way, doesn’t have gendered words. 
> 
> Now, the other strange language is Dai Bendu, courtesy of the Dai Bendu Conlang project. 
> 
> Jaieh means Master. 
> 
> Rah’eni means sibling. In Dai Bendu the pluralization is attached to the article, but the only ones I found were “a” and “the” so I’m just going with an implied plural here. These are Astraea’s clan mates that were mentioned earlier. Among them are Cal Ketsis, Caleb Dume, and Ahsoka Tano, because I can do that. 
> 
> Zahlah means Story, and is the name Astraea took to help avoid imperial detection - same as Caleb taking the name Kanan. She also uses the last name Ness, which doesn’t have a meaning. 
> 
> Benah foh means I endure. 
> 
> Tonbrei enoah foh midaial ru enoah dai mifoh'al means I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. It’s a meditation mantra but also a nice reminder when you realize that Jedi believe they join the Force when they die. Saying “the Force is with me” is also by extension saying “you’re still with me.”
> 
> So the small Remembrance Ritual. This is actually a modified version of what I do every Samhain. 
> 
> The basic version is you get a candle and place food and drink (usually alcohol) as an offering at the Northern point. Something representing the people you’re remembering at the Western and Eastern points. And finally, something representing you at the Southern point, where you kneel. 
> 
> For Astraea, the bracers represent the Vode because they were a gift from them to her (and they have the Wolffe-pack Wolf painted on it), the Holocron represents the Jedi, and her lightsaber and Kyber crystal represents her. (When I do it, I use a family heirloom from my mother’s side, and one from my fathers side.) 
> 
> After you set it up, you greet those you’re remembering (usually by saying their names following the word “welcome”) and then tell stories you remember about your experiences with them. 
> 
> The line about “soon I will pass on” is taken from Yoda’s small speech at the hangar bombing funeral. I don’t say that when I do my ritual. Neither do I say the Mando’a and Dai Bendu prayers and mantras. Just “welcome _____” and then stories. 
> 
> When I was modifying my ritual, I wanted to combine the Mandalorian prayer and beliefs in being remembered - something Astraea could have picked up from the Vode - with the Jedi beliefs of them returning to the Force after death, and then i decided that if the Jedi were encouraged to connect with their home cultures - which there is evidence that they are (see the Mirialans cultural tattoos for a quick example) - Astraea could very well have a Remembrance ritual in her own culture, just as I do in my own mix of modern paganism and witchcraft, and she may very well decide to incorporate the Vode’s beliefs and her beliefs as a Jedi in it. And so became this ritual. 
> 
> The “lightsaber and other teal Kyber crystal” bit is because Astraea had two sabers. One was a Light-Pike but she really couldn’t carry that around so she removed the crystal and ditched it. She did, however, keep a hold of her actual ‘saber. Both of the crystals are teal.


End file.
